


Old Friends

by Savnarae



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 21:44:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13221843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savnarae/pseuds/Savnarae
Summary: In the waning years of their lives, Angela and Genji receive an unexpected visitor on New Year's night as they spend the holiday quietly at home with Genji's master, Zenyatta.





	Old Friends

A sharp knocking quiets the gentle festivities within. It is New Year’s Eve, and no one expected guests. None were invited. 

The last note fades from Zenyatta’s musical orbs. He looks from his aging student on the couch above to the doctor curled beside the man and rises, gliding to answer the door. 

A tall woman stands beneath the eaves, snow melting in her silver-orange hair. In her arm is a gift. Her clothing is dark and thin for the wintry night outside. She seems underdressed and is obviously suffering for it, though she tries to hide the fact with a stiffened demeanor. He turns on the outer lights to see her more clearly, and a small, sad shock ripples through his circuits.

“Oh. How may I help you?” 

“Oh,” she echoes, her voice clear despite her appearance. 

Terrible scarring has marred the right side of her face, purpling her appearance and permanently closing her eye. Strange, dark patterns wrap across her aging, wrinkled skin, and it is unclear if they were caused by the damage or were some technological attempt to stymie it. Her remaining eye is a sharp, piercing blue, ringed by a pair of concentric, perfectly paralleled thin red lines, as though missing something that used to sit there. She regards the omnic before her quietly a moment before answering. 

“I’m sorry, I must have the wrong address. Do you know if an Angela Ziegler lives nearby?” 

“Master, who is at the door?” Genji calls from within. 

Zenyatta turns to the two of them, then turns back to the woman. 

“Please, come in. You must be cold.” 

He begins to open the door, but she refuses, raising her right hand. It is cybernetic, and like the rest of her it doesn’t seem to be handling the snow well, grinding and whirring with a quiet, jerking protest. 

“No, no. I must...Forgive me for interrupting.” 

She begins to turn away, fumbling about her person for a small piece of paper to check the address.

“Please stay, Angela is here,” Zenyatta entreats, reaching a hand toward the woman. The visitor turns back, her breath pluming in the cold.

“Come in, please. We’ll set some cocoa.”

The stranger stares a moment, then smiles faintly. She even manages a small chuckle. Zenyatta glides backwards, gesturing for her to enter. 

She refolds the paper and slips it back into her pocket as she steps across the threshold. She has a heavy limp and favors her left leg, looking down carefully as she hops over her right. 

“I am Zenyatta,” the omnic introduces, “friend of--” 

“--Zenyatta, no!” 

A flurry of movement from the couch draws everyone’s eye. Doctor Ziegler stands, an empty mug held tightly like a weapon. Genji looks up at her suspiciously, then at the stranger, and inhales slightly. He begins to push himself from the couch as well. Angela’s aged hand touches his chest gently to keep him down. He is too old, his cybernetics failing from too many years of strain and repairs. They both know the woman well, but he would not be useful to overpower her, should their interactions turn violent.

“Genji…?” The visitor stares in surprise at her present company.

Zenyatta glides protectively between the guest and his friends, the only ageless being there. He does not wish to turn away a shivering elderly woman on the eve of a new year, but they all have their enemies, and it would seem there was much history between his friends and this stranger. 

“Introduce yourself, please,” he requests, his voice calm but insistent. 

Angela replies before the guest can say a word. 

“That is Doctor Moira O’Deorain, Zenyatta. Former Talon member. She is not welcome here.” 

The doctor steps closer, hefting her mug threateningly. 

“How did you get out of prison?”

Moira looks down at the gift in her hand. 

“Parole, Doctor Ziegler. And good behavior.” 

“What do you want.” 

Zenyatta glances between the two and gently floats off, closing the door to keep out the cold. He eyes the scene carefully, but decides to let it play out so long as everyone remains nonviolent. Their guest does not seem a threat, to him. 

Neither woman moves. 

“I didn’t expect you would have company, much less Mr. Shimada.” Her sharp eye drops to the ring on Angela’s hand, and the matching band on Genji’s. “I didn’t know you’d settled down.” 

“And you wish to extort me for something?” 

Moira raises her gaze and holds out the package with her good arm. Like her it is tall and thin, and wrapped in purple and black. Her hand trembles visibly beneath its weight.

“I thought I might try to start the new year with some small atonements.” 

“What is it.” 

“It is a present, Angela, not a bomb. Take it.” 

She doesn’t move, and neither does Ziegler. Zenyatta intervenes, watching Moira’s face as he slowly reaches for the gift. She relinquishes it to him and he carries it to Angela, offering it to her. 

The doctor scowls at her unwelcome visitor, but takes the thing, setting down the mug on a nearby side table. She removes the gold bow and slides her nail beneath the pristine tape, unwrapping a bottle of expensive Irish whiskey. Genji sits up to see around her and manages a small, wheezing chuckle. A tiny smirk tugs at the corner of Moira’s lips as well, but it disappears quickly. Angela is not as amused. 

“You planned to inebriate me. Alone.”

“I believe the expression is ‘drinking on a holiday with an old friend’.” 

“We are not friends.”

“Angela,” Genji says, reaching forward to touch his wife’s elbow. “Let her stay.” 

“Absolutely not, Genji.” 

“She _is_ an old friend.” 

“She is a criminal.” 

He looks up at her, pushing himself slowly to his creaking feet. “So was I. So were we all, at some point or another.” 

She takes his shoulder to steady him, and he slips an arm around her waist. She looks away.

“Politics are different from actions, Genji.” 

“Both are lines that I have crossed.” 

She squeezes his shoulder gently. 

“I can’t trust her. I know what she did for you, but you too know what she’s done since.” 

“She and I are not so different, Angela. We were all just warriors, trying to make a better world in our own way. You chose medicine, I was handed the blade. She has done good things, too. You gave me a second chance.” He takes her hand in his, tracing her ring with his thumb. “And a third. Give her one. Look at her. Look at us. Master will protect us, and I will protect you.” 

Zenyatta looks from the two of them to Moira, and back. He knows he is more than capable of settling any disputes, should they arise.

“It has been many years, Doctor Ziegler,” the omnic begins calmly. “We all have darkness in our pasts, but to continue to build a bright future, we must forgive, and offer our hand when it is reached for.”

Angela looks down at the whiskey in her arm, then up at Moira, who watches silently with her single eye, awaiting judgment. Her hair is thinning and slick with melted snow. Her posture, though straight as a rod, quivers slightly, hinting at a frailty she is struggling to conceal. Her cybernetic arm twitches and grinds quietly as she pulls it behind her back, clasping her hands. She is a shadow of the woman she used to be. Toothless, declawed. Her lifetime of careless, reckless science has taken its toll on her far more than any punishment the state has ordered, and it is clear that she has few years left. 

Mercy sighs and looks around, gesturing to the empty armchair beside the hearth. 

“Don’t expect a miracle, Doctor O’Deorain,” she says quietly, “but at least warm yourself by the fire.” 

Moira smiles cordially, an expression that after a lifetime of practice still carries something sinister to it despite her best efforts, and makes her way slowly and carefully into the room. Her efforts are labored by her weakened leg, where for quite some time the tenacious, creeping degeneration that had already claimed her arm and eye had taken root. She lowers herself with a resting sigh into the chair. 

“Thank you, Angela,” she says gratefully. “And you, Genji. You seem well, for your age.” 

Genji looks up from where he is being helped back onto the couch.

“And you, Doctor.” 

She smirks, watching the flames as they chase away the last of the December chill. “Moira,” she corrects gently. She hasn’t been a doctor for a very long time. 

Zenyatta hums musically at the scene before him, pleased at the amends his friends are willing to make at one of the most appropriate times of the year. 

“I’ll set some milk to warm for cocoa,” he announces gently. He begins to float away, then pauses, glancing back at the threshold to the dining room. 

“Do not worry, Angela,” he adds, an amusing hint to his tone. “I will watch over you.”

The woman shoots him a glare as she settles onto the couch herself, trying not to smile, but Genji laughs aloud. Moira watches the cheerful scene before her with a quiet contentment. Perhaps the last few years of her life could be pleasant, after all.


End file.
